The last time Ginger had been in a clothes cubicle, it had been trying on bridesmaids’ dresses like tents with Charlene and Liza giggling outside, admiring Charlene in a dress Ginger’s leg wouldn’t have fitted in. She still hadn’t heard from Liza – not a single call or text. Her plan to do this to show Liza that she didn’t whine felt like a very far-off plan indeed.
She stood inside for a moment, unwilling to strip off. Then she sat down on the small leather-look cream pouffe and started to cry.
In an instant, Lulu was in with her.
‘I can’t do this, Lulu,’ Ginger said. ‘I will feel so exposed. It will be just like the wedding all over again, but this time, in work. In photos. Photos everyone can see. I dress to hide myself, I can’t do this.’
‘You don’t have to do it,’ Lulu said, hugging her until the sobs subsided. ‘Nobody says you can’t file a discrimination complaint. The entire management can’t think the sun shines out of that woman’s butt.’
‘They do,’ said Ginger. ‘I’m new to her team, still on contract, totally replaceable.’
‘Yet she’s threatened by you,’ said Lulu, ‘or else she wouldn’t be trying to break everyone on her team. Ever wonder about that? You got more power than you think, girl: you need to find it. Honey, we’ve got the tools and under that tent of black, I think you’ve got the materials. Sexy comes in all sizes. I try not to call any fellow woman a bitch, but if the cap fits ... so let’s show the bitch that you’re coming up fighting.’
‘It’s not easy for me,’ Ginger said tearfully. ‘I’m ... I’m fat. People aren’t allowed to be fat. I hate it, but other people seem to hate it more.’ The tears poured out of her and she blindly reached for tissues.
Lulu handed her one. ‘Come on, girl. Let’s try this and if you hate it all, then you walk. Deal?’
‘But ...’ Ginger looked up at all the swimsuits Eugenia was hanging up on the rail. ‘I thought we could try workout gear – like sweatpants with a long T-shirt or something ...?’
‘I got a brief from your photographic department. It’s a swimsuit shoot. Swimwear only.’ She patted Ginger comfortingly. ‘I won’t let you do it if you don’t look amazing, I promise.’
The photography studio in theSunday Newswas an airy, light-filled area with dressing rooms, a shower and proper hair and make-up stations. The photographer was surprised to see a team, led by Lulu, arriving with a hair and make-up person and an abashed Ginger bringing up the rear.
‘Photos are not till half-two,’ he said and looked at his watch. ‘That’s in over three hours.’
‘Sweetie, we need time,’ said Lulu, wearing something even more scarily high fashion today, dark hair dried poker-straight so her fringe sat Cleopatra-style over vivid green eyes outlined with don’t-fuck-with-me eyeliner that matched her metallic charcoal eyeshadow. ‘We’ve got hair, make-up and I’m styling. If a reporter has to be a model, we need the professionals,’ she said, eyeballing him.
‘Me, I love professionals,’ he said, throwing a leather jacket on. ‘Jack Hanratty. See you later. I’m off to lunch.’
Ginger had never had her auburn mane curled with rollers into a sexy tumble of curls. She liked make-up, but the things the make-up artist did with her skin and her eyes made her look exotic: huge eyes outlined into mysterious sexiness, and her face contoured properly so she really didn’t recognise herself. Her lips were so glossed, she was sure they could be seen from space. Best of all was the tan – a rich bronze sprayed on by someone Lulu knew who’d spent forty-five minutes the night before contouring Ginger’s body so that she would not have believed it was her in front of the mirror. It had been worth the forty-five minutes in the tanning booth, holding her boobs up, shivering as the cold spray hit her skin.
‘No bikinis,’ said Lulu and had found a sexy purple swimsuit with plenty of hold that came with a small sarong and, when worn with ludicrously high nude platform sandals, transformed Ginger into a 1950s pin-up with a beautiful waist, and long, long legs.
‘Why are you covering these up?’ said Lulu. ‘You have the most amazing legs and what a waist. Why do you tent yourself?’
‘My waist is only there because this swimsuit has a tourniquet in the middle section made of industrial rubber,’ bleated Ginger, ‘and I’m not usually this colour.’
‘Nobody is this colour,’ Lulu said. ‘Humans do not come in molten bronze with carefully applied highlighter. Well, except for Dwayne Johnson. A little old, obvs, but still, you would, right?
‘Thing is, Ginger, if you can learn to love yourself with tan on, you might learn to love yourself without it.’
They practised posing with Lulu directing her, until Lulu made her face a full-length mirror and go through it all again.
‘I can’t look at me!’ Ginger said in embarrassment.
‘That’s what the models do. Pose and learn. Figure out your angles. You have a great shape. Total hourglass. That’s rare.’
Ginger had spent years avoiding herself in mirrors, but with Lulu barking directions, she had no option but to comply.
By two, the photographer was back, as were Jodie, the beauty editor, who had clearly had her make-up professionally done, and Fiona, the Krav Maga girl, who favoured purple lipstick and hair with blue tips, neither of which looked to have been touched up lately.
‘You decent, Reilly?’ asked Fiona as she barged into the changing room where Ginger’s crew were tidying up.
Ginger herself stood with her back to the mirror, breathing deeply with her eyes closed. She had to practise her stance a few more times, but she was getting so nervous ...
‘Fuck,’ said Fiona. ‘Ginger, you look freakin’ amazing.’
Jodie, now clad in a bikini that showed off her slender, porcelain skinned-body and long brunette hair, hurried in and stopped dead. Her mouth fell open and she didn’t say anything for a beat. ‘You’re gorgeous, Ginger,’ she said. ‘Your hair, your make-up, your body ...’
